Mobile marketing blog

People keep telling me that SMS is complicated and some of the more cautious marketers are avoiding taking the bold step, it really is only as complicated as you make it.

You can see people texting in supermarkets, at their desk in work, on the train and so on. So why don't people see the potential behind active, relevant and personal promotions. There really is a method to reach any audience with mobile marketing, you just need to figure out the best approach.

Ok I apologise in advance this will get a little technical but bear with me this stuff really works.

Keywords, Shortcodes and the text message response

The keyword is a unique word often used at the beginning of a message sent to an active campaign, each keyword is recognised by the campaign and dealt with appropriately - for example you might text the keyword PLAY followed by your favourite song to a radio DJ requesting it be added to their play list.

The shortcode is the number they send and often receive messages from. We have set up such an example for you to see this in action our promotional message is "Why not text the word TEXTWORKS to 87474", this is an ACTUAL campaign and took me about 5 seconds to set up and you can try texting it now if you like. You will only be charged your standard network rate.

The message refers to the response from their initial text. Our response from the above campaign will be "Thanks for reading our company blog, we will continue to publish advice and news and look forward to working with you". Ok not the most exciting thing in the world but you get the idea.

So here's what I recommend you do, sign up for a free trial, login and verify your mobile phone number - don't worry we won't spam you in fact its our way of reducing the amount of spammer sign ups WE receive. Once we know you are a genuine user you will be able to login to our SMS mobile marketing interface and get started.

Now at this point I want you to take a deep breath, yes there are a lot of options and no you probably won't use all of them right away. Click "Campaigns", select the option "Text response" and complete the form, if you do anything wrong you will get an error and nothing bad will happen - I promise, remember its a free trial so nothing spent nothing lost.

Alternatively you might not want to sign up, that's fine - we thought some people might not so contact our support team making sure you include your phone number in the email if you want a call back. One of our guys will get back to you and walk you through a live demonstration over the phone.

Ok so what next?
Build a promotion that only you can offer and make it something they WILL need. Starbucks offered a holiday reminder service at their Point Of Sale (POS), a free SMS reminder people could opt into by texting "BREAK" plus the date to a shortcode. This is clever, give something for free to encourage the opt in then send them coffee related promotions - you know they like coffee anyway because thats where the promotion started, at the Point Of Sale in a Starbucks.

Next lets publicise your campaign, use email, media, leaflets or other paper based advertising and even Facebook or Twitter, use any method you think will reach your audience to get your promotion out there. And don't give up on your first try, Future publishing's initial promotions were not hugely profitable but they stuck at it and now they are monetising content, promoting third part products and interacting with a large audience to increase brand attention.

Most people need to speak to us before they jump into the fine art of mobile marketing, so speak to us even if you are not completely sure you want to add this to the mix, it will revolutionise the way your customers think and interact with you. I look forward to speaking to you and good luck!